Pro-life

OWOSSO, Mich. (AP) — A 63-year-old anti-abortion activist who was shot and killed outside a Michigan high school had been arrested in the past for protesting.
James Pouillon (PULL-yun) was arrested in 1994 after protesting on the steps of Owosso’s city hall instead of his usual spot on the sidewalk. He sued, claiming violations of his constitutional free speech, religion and assembly rights.
A 2000 federal appeals court ruling said Pouillon often was the target of verbal abuse along with “assorted missiles” while standing in front of City Hall. The court said he once was almost run down by a motorist who swerved onto the sidewalk and drove at him.
A car dealership also sued Pouillon in the 1990s for picketing and shouting slogans at customers.

This story which is running a numerous news sites really angers me. This is unbelievable their focus on the victim being arrested in the past for defending the innocents. Yes the victims previous arrest record forced the murderer to shoot him multiple times. Guns don’t kill people, people being arrested for pro-life activities does.

Even worse this was the headline they ran with which they did not even check for accuracy. “Abortion activist was arrested for protest” Abortion activist?

Owosso, MI (LifeNews.com) — Local officials and state police are confirming that a pro-life advocate was shot and killed outside a high school in this Michigan town. The person, who is described as well-known but whose identity has not been released, was shot multiple times while protesting abortion outside Owosso High School.

LifeNews.com has learned that the pro-life advocate is James Pouillon and the local Argus Press newspaper in Owosso has confirmed that to be the case. He was reportedly shot multiple times.

In the spot where the Pouillon stood, a portable oxygen tank lay next to a sign with a picture of an unborn child and the word “Life.”

Officials say the shooting occurred at 7:30 a.m. local time and most students were inside the school building at the time of the incident. The shooting did not take place on school property but officials locked down the school and taped off most of the front portions of the school grounds.

State police have confirmed they apprehended a suspect about 8:15 a.m. at the suspect’s home in this small community northeast of Lansing.

Sara Edwards, the chief assistant prosecutor for Shiawassee County, has confirmed that Pouillon’s pro-life stance was the reason he was targeted and said the suspect officials have in custody disapproved of his abortion protests outside the schools.

“There was some displeasure with how open he was,” she said. “He tended to carry big signs with very graphic pictures of fetuses.[reference]

This is a sad story as in the case of every murder. No doubt as pro-lifers we will be looking at the disparity of coverage in this murder compared to the murder of abortionist George Tiller. Also no doubt many other parallels will be mentioned. Hopefully though pro-lifers will not blame this on anybody else but the shooter himself. No talk about pro-abortion advocates creating a climate that lead to this murder is appropriate. This is a tactic of the pro-aborts to use a situation to their advantage. I think we should see this as a sad case likely done by someone just as disturbed as the very small numbers of people who shot abortion doctors.

It is of course fact that violence around abortion clinics is overwhelmingly done by pro-abortion advocates even if these circumstance rarely if ever get covered. The culture of death has lead to a cheapening of all life, but it surely does not mean that pro-abortion activists will become murderers. We must not demonize our foes even as they demonize the pro-life movement.

That being said I wonder if the President will make a statement like he made in regards to George Tiller’s murder. Within short hours of that murder pretty much every pro-life group condemned it. So far abortion advocacy groups are imitating fields of crickets.

Though some liberals are very upset about this. How could the murderer dare to violate the sacrosanct “gun free zone” around a school.

In the meantime we can pray for Mr. Pouillon and his family along with his murderer.

Tony Delamoth, the Deputy Editor of the British Medical Journal has asked Assisted dying: what’s disability got to do with it?, saying that “the debate on assisted dying has been hijacked by disabled people who want to live”.

Fr. Tim Finigan has some links to responses to this.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told the New York Times that she opposes sex-selection abortions and is working to do more the combat them. One pro-life advocate is inviting her to support legislation in Congress to accomplish that and notes how her colleagues aren’t as vocal.

In an interview with the New York Times published on Sunday, Clinton acknowledges the problems of sex-selection abortions in some Asian nations.

“Obviously, there’s work to be done in both India and China, because the infanticide rate of girl babies is still overwhelmingly high,” she says.

“Unfortunately, with technology, parents are able to use sonograms to determine the sex of a baby, and to abort girl children simply because they’d rather have a boy. And those are deeply set attitudes,” Clinton continues.

She adds she is seeing “openness and commitment” by the governments of India and China in confronting these practices. [reference]

As you would expect the NYT does not have a follow up question in regards to sex-selection abortion. No question as to how if abortion is a “right” then how does doing it because of the sex of the child then make it a problem. Either it is a human person or it is not. The sex of a “tissue mass” would not matter. Does the women have a so-called choice just as long as the reason is not sex-selection? As is always the case the supporters of abortion are inconsistent. They will talk about reducing abortion while never explain under their philosophy why you would need to reduce a “right”.

The problem of sex-selection while prevalent in some countries is not unknown in the states where U.S. resident Chinese, Korean, and Asian Indian parents are indeed having sex-selection abortions now along with others. Sex selection is also available via In Vitro Fertilization and they use such terms as “family balancing.” Besides sperm separation techniques such as microsort there is PGD, also known as embryo screening and PGS (preimplantation genetic screening), is the only other method of gender selection that has been proven effective. PGD means that a embryo is created and then murdered if it does not match up based on whatever criteria the parent selects such as sex or genetic disease. There are no legal restraints on sex-selection in the United States.

A new group blog created by Jean at Catholic Fire called Catholics Against ObamaCare has just started out. Check it out.

Let Me Be Clear, As I Have Always Said, Abortion Funding is Not in My Health Care Plan

As I Have Also Always Said, Abortion Funding is “At the Center and Heart of” My Health Care Plan

Well we can take Obama at this word or take Obama at his, hmm “other” word. Just pic which version you like better. Like those children’s books we now have “Choose your own Presidency”, just string together the quotes you like and no matter what side you are on you pick what you want. [reference]

MADISON – As Gov. Jim Doyle was telling Wisconsinites on Aug. 17 that he would not seek a third term as governor, the Catholic bishops of Wisconsin were letting the faithful know of their “deep concern” about the recently approved state budget that requires them to provide contraceptive services to those for whom they provide health insurance. “This mandate will compel Catholic dioceses, parishes, and other agencies that buy health insurance to pay for a medical service that Catholic teaching holds to be gravely immoral,” the bishops wrote…. “This mandate violates not just our religious values, but also our constitutional rights. The right of conscience established in the Wisconsin Constitution protects the minority from the majority…” the bishops wrote. Insurance coverage in two dioceses – Superior and La Crosse – is not affected by this mandate because self-insured entities are exempt from the contraceptive provision. The statement, released through the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, noted that “as Catholic teachers and pastors, we strongly object to this blatant insensitivity to our moral values and legal rights.” [reference]

Missouri Catholic Conference Applauds Gov. Nixon’s Commitment to Fully Fund Alternatives to Abortion Program

August 20, 2009, JEFFERSON CITY, MO – Today Governor Jay Nixon committed to fully funding the Alternatives to Abortion (ATA) program for state fiscal year 2010. Cuts were proposed by the Missouri Department of Health in June in response to the current state budget crisis.

“We thank Gov. Nixon for securing ATA funding during these difficult economic times. The Alternatives to Abortion (ATA) program is very important for thousands of women and their children, born and unborn,” said Deacon Larry Weber, Executive Director of the Missouri Catholic Conference. The ATA program, which has spanned a dozen years and four gubernatorial administrations, has proven year in and year out to be an effective means of providing help to pregnant women who may be at risk of an abortion.”

The ATA program is allocated $1.9 million, which represents a very modest investment toward saving unborn children and assisting women in crisis pregnancies. Research shows that providing alternative services encourages more women to carry their unborn child to term thereby reducing the number of abortions.

Missouri has been a leader in reducing abortions and the ATA program has been a key-component of that pro-life effort. The Missouri Catholic Conference (MCC) would like to congratulate the pro-life citizens for their hard work and voices heard in support of the program.[reference]

A judge reversed an Oklahoma state law yesterday that required women seeking abortions to receive ultrasounds and a physical description of their “fetus” from their doctors. But that’s not all. In overturning the law, Oklahoma County District Judge Vicki Robertson also reversed conscience protections that allowed doctors, nurses and other health care providers to refuse to participate in an abortion on moral or religious grounds.

Although the original law was passed in 2008, legal battles have prevented it from being put into practice. Judge Robertson struck down the law citing “constitutional requirements that a legislative measure deal only with one subject.” According to a story in the Los Angeles Times, she did not offer a ruling on “the validity of the ultrasound provisions.”

Here’s an interview from that story with a representative of one of the usual pro-abortion camps:

“Stephanie Toti, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said Oklahoma was the only state to mandate that a physician both conduct an ultrasound and describe the images to the patient.

“‘The ultrasound provision takes away a patient’s choice about whether or not to view an ultrasound, and it requires physicians to provide information to their patients that the physicians do not believe is medically necessary,’ Toti said. ‘It’s an affront to women’s autonomy and decision-making power, and it’s also an intrusion to the physician-patient relationship.'”

Try to imagine for a moment the outrage we would hear — and rightly so — if, for instance, someone suggested that people undergoing treatment for colon cancer not be burdened with a look at their colonoscopy results, or that it is intrusive for a doctor to suggest a woman look at the films of a questionable mammogram. Or imagine the reaction if pregnant women planning to carry their babies to term were told they didn’t need to see their growing children on ultrasound, no less capture 4-D images suitable for framing. Isn’t it interesting how what is standard medical procedure in one instance becomes “an affront to women’s autonomy and decision-making power” when the procedure in question might remind them — and the rest of us — of the baby growing in the womb? [reference]

NARAL Pro-Choice America’s director of government relations once called the Ultrasound a “weapon.” No doubt reality is a scary thing for supporters of abortion. It is hard to talk about “tissue masses”, and “biological material” when it has a beating heart. All of the euphemisms the pro-abortion side employ fall in the face of the reality the ultrasound shows. This is why they launched an attack on emergency pregnancy centers using ultrasounds and any state law requiring them. Though they are not against use of ultrasounds since them use them before performing the abortion, they just don’t want the women to have that information. They call themselves pro-choice, yet are in no way pro-informed-choice.

The worst it gets. Jill Stanek covers the he now infamous Section 1233 in a House version of the nationalized healthcare plan. Big shock that two of the writers of it are major proponents of euthanasia, assisted suicide – oh but wait the President told us “we aren’t going to pull the plug on grandma.” No it will be grandma, grandpa and everybody else without acceptable “quality of life.” Remember the President said on Terri Schiavo that he wished he could take back his vote “that allowed Congress to interject itself into the decision-making process of the families.”

But according to some Catholic advocacy groups we should go full speed ahead with Obamacare and not worry about these details.